Getting Ready For Dinner

This post will go down as an example of how much free time I have and how obsessive I can be about certain things.

This coming Monday, Maya and her friend are coming over for dinner. This is good, three people hanging out, watching movies, and eating what I hope will be good food. But here is the catch and it could be that I am pumping the event up way too much in my head and its causing me to freak out. That catch is I have never really had people in my apartment that I was looking to impress. My place isn't exactly built for entertaining or cooking impressive meals.

So I have scurried about this week trying to figure out what to cook and trying to make my place look cooler than it actually is. Both are proving to be difficult, especially the food part.

The problem with the food is that my kitchen consists of one single, solitary, gas burner and my microwave and rice cooker. I refuse to microwave my guests something to eat. If I had an oven, the choice would be easy, lasagna or my take on chicken parmesan. Since I fly sans oven these days, the choice gets more difficult. Spaghetti is an option but you can get spaghetti anywhere. Grilled cheese sandwiches are just out. What I think will end of happening is I will go to the store and grab a few steaks, cut them into strips and marinate them for a day. Pan grill the strips and serve them over a bed of rice with some broccoli and grilled red peppers on the side. It should look good and the steak will be something they haven't tried before, at least not marinated Mogwai style. It just seems very simple and not very elegant. It also has the potential to be somewhat dry so I have been trying to decided whether I will make a this glaze/sauce to put over the steak strips and that may help to blend the veggies in a little better. As stated, I think I overthink things sometimes.

Its hard though because I really do like Maya and want to make a good impression on her, I just wish I was able to be back in the States to do it. At least then, I would have an operational kitchen. I would also have a television bigger than my small laptop screen to watch movies on.

So yeah, that is my dilemma of sorts. As I said, I think its probably less of a dilemma and more like a product of my overactive mind. If you have any meal suggestions, shoot them over to me because at this point I am still open to suggestions.